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Private Prisons

From October 2014 to the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primary 16 months later, AFSC trained more than 1200 people to talk with the presidential candidatesquestions about the excessive influence of Pentagon contractors, the for-profit prison industry, and a corrupt system that enables powerful corporations to drive American policy toward their own interests. Together, we asked the candidates more than 400 questions and documented many of them on this website. These "bird dogging" efforts, combined with the use of our giant banners and other educational activities, helped turn the political discourse toward urgent issues that might have otherwise been ignored.

Within a few hours before the Iowa Caucus, we talked with three candidates in Des Moines. Martin O’Malley called for openness, transparency and accountability in the Defense Department. Rick Santorum learned more about the immigrant detention quota and for-profit prisons. Jeb Bush wants to modernize the nuclear triad with an aspiration of reducing nuclear armaments.

"There is an incentive to keep those prisons going. It's one of the fastest growing businesses we have," said Dr. Ben Carson on private prisons lobbying millions of dollars to incarcerate more people on Sunday Jan. 25th in Ames, Iowa. He continued by saying we need to change rules for mandatory incarceration rules and non-violent offenders.

Marco Rubio is open to private prisons if they save taxpayers money, but acknowledged all of them might not be up to standard as state and federal government run-prisons. He said if they weren't fulfilling their purpose, he is open to them potentially being shut down.

“People go in but they never come out, they never leave,” said Mike Huckabee at a private round table discussion on big money in politics while referring to a lifetime ban on the revolving door between Congress and lobbyists.

Marco Rubio says he gets asked "at every stop" about the role of private companies profiting from a federal policy requiring detention of 34,000 immigrants every day. But he insists corporations are not writing those laws, and that large-scale detention is necessary.